Page 1 of Coffee & Cuffs

Prologue

Sam

Ow! Ow, ow, ow, his fucking face hurt and Sam Stewart did not do well with pain. He tried to glare at the tall muscular man who’d somehow taken it upon himself to be Sam’s guard for the night. Sam didn’t know how he’d ended up in the emergency room with Lincoln and Nash’s boss and he was too tired to figure it out. He just knew that he needed to get out of the hospital and the big man was stopping him. So the big man got the glare directed at him since Sam was in pain…and needy…and this sucked!

“He’s in pain!” Lieutenant Carson Cirillo bellowed. “Get him something!”

The nurses were scrambling to get away from the big man’s anger as they tried to take care of Sam as well. As the lieutenant grumbled more curses, pacing beside the hospital bed that Sam had been deposited on, Sam reached out and grabbed the lieutenant’s sleeve.

The lieutenant frowned at him.

“Shh,” Sam pleaded. “Too loud.”

The lieutenant’s entire presence changed right in front of Sam’s eyes. The anger left him in a rush of breath that he blew out before his eyes filled with compassion. “Sorry.”

Sam nodded. He continued to hold the ice compress against his cheek as he stared at the older man. He’d never met the attractive lieutenant previously but the few times that Lincoln or Nash had mentioned Lieutenant Carson Cirillo, they spoke with respect. Sam could understand why the two detectives liked their boss. The lieutenant was no-nonsense but had kind eyes and obviously cared that Sam was in pain. Maybe Sam should stop glaring at him after all.

The lieutenant’s phone chimed, and he pulled it from his pocket.

“Caden? Adam?” Sam needed to know that his friends were okay. Wow, this was a mess. He hadn’t been able to see Caden as he’d been whisked away in an ambulance. Adam…Adam had been crying. Adam never cried. He was strong and resilient, and fuck…Sam wanted out of the hospital. He hated being separated from his friends.

“They are both fine. You’re the one that everyone is worried about,” Lieutenant Cirillo answered as he typed back a message.

Normally Sam would be happy as a clam with all the attention on him. He wasn’t happy now. He’d never been so terrified in his life when the gunman had forced his way into the coffee shop before hitting him. They’d messed up. Lincoln had warned them to be on the lookout for trouble, but Caden had almost been taken because Sam and Adam hadn’t been good enough to protect him.

It had been Caden who ended up saving them all.

There was a knock on the door and the doctor that Sam had been introduced to earlier stepped in.

“Good news,” Doctor Jones announced. “No broken bones. Your cheek is bruised, and I know you’re in pain, but you’ll be fine. I’ll get you some pain meds and release you.”

“I can go home?” Sam repeated. Yes! He really wanted to go home.

“Yes, Mr. Stewart. Give me about twenty minutes.”

Sam watched the doctor leave his room again. That was it? He’d been hit in the face with a gun and all he got was some pain pills and sent home? That was anticlimactic. Sure, Sam had been demanding to go home but he…just expected something else. And now that he could go home Sam didn’t know…maybe he didn’t have to go home. He could go by Caden’s apartment and check on his friend. Except Caden was probably with his Daddy. He didn’t need Sam to hover over him. Caden was the only one of them that had a partner to take care of him. Maybe he would go to Adam’s. Adam was as alone as Sam. The two of them had been searching for a Daddy of their own ever since Sam had moved to Rocky Lake. They hadn’t been as lucky as Caden to stumble across the Daddy of their dreams. Not that Sam was jealous of Caden. Okay, he might be a little jealous, but Caden deserved to be loved and cared for by Lincoln.

“Hey, are you okay? Did they check you for a concussion?”

Sam smiled. Then winced when smiling hurt his face. “You heard the doctor. I’m fine.”

Lieutenant Cirillo scowled. “We should get a second opinion.”

“Naw, it’s fine.” Sam waved his ice pack around. “My dad always said I had a hard head.” That had been one of the better things that his father had said about Sam.

The lieutenant’s lips twitched.

“Besides, I’m tired,” Sam admitted. Bone-tired and simply confused and a little scared.

“We’ll get you out of here and home.” The lieutenant smiled and it made him look ten years younger. Not that Sam thought there was anything wrong with the way that the lieutenant looked. He was a tall muscular man with short brown hair with strands of gray around the temples. Sam loved that gray. It was the lieutenant’s kind dark eyes that pulled Sam in though. He could tell the older man was attracted to him and Sam found that funny as he was definitely not looking his best.

Placing his head back on the pillow, Sam allowed himself to drift. He loved his life in Rocky Lake, and he never expected that he’d be injured or that a crazy gunman would target him or his best friends. There was a small part inside him that knew if he hadn’t run away from home, he would never have had to deal with the trauma. Of course, his life would be much different than it was now. Instead of love and acceptance, Sam would have remained locked away from the world. He might have been safe behind the closed door, but he wouldn’t have been happy.

Sam hadn’t known happiness until he’d moved to the small inclusive town in Arizona as far from his hometown as he could get. Sam didn’t have to hide who he was any longer. Even if it meant going against another man with a gun, Sam wouldn’t change anything.

“Hey,” the lieutenant said softly as he brushed Sam’s hair off his forehead. “The nurse is here to let you go.”

Sam struggled to open his eyes. He must have been out of it more than he realized as he hadn’t heard the door open, or the nurse speak. She must have spoken with the lieutenant as the older man held paperwork in his hand.

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